During the ongoing US-Israeli conflict with Iran, both the academy’s Hebrew and English websites were redirected to a page displaying the message: “No need to learn Hebrew anymore. You won’t need it for much longer,” News.Az reports, citing Israeli media.
The page features an image of Handala, a symbol associated with Palestinian resistance. The character was created in 1969 by Palestinian newspaper cartoonist Naji al-Ali and has since been widely used by the Palestinian national movement.
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Handala is also the name of an Iran-linked hacker group that has previously infiltrated the devices of Israeli politicians and, more recently, the Clalit healthcare network.
However, the group’s social media accounts have not mentioned the hacking of the academy’s website, and the logo currently displayed on the site differs slightly from the group’s known emblem.
A source close to the academy cannot confirm which body hacked into the academy’s website.
The source adds that the hackers may be perturbed by the number of Persian words that are commonly used in the Hebrew language, including the word for religion, “dat.”
